The modern Legion was built to fight against the Dungeon. It is an engine of war capable of traditional battle, but it excels at one thing. At the only thing that matters. Keeping the Dungeon contained.
Centuries of blood and sweat have given birth to arguably one of the most formidable professional armies on this planet, and woe to any who draw their ire.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Elly was getting pretty used to this whole teleportation thing. Her stomach didn't so much as flutter, orienting herself was becoming second nature and watching the landscape blur past was becoming more beautiful than distracting.
It was still surreal as all the Hells, though.
She could move more quickly, if she really pushed herself, but this was rough terrain. Mountains and boulders, ice and small groups of lost Hounds. It would attract attention, probably result in a whole horde chasing her, and sleep would be difficult.
Now they moved through the landscape as quietly as a whisper, and with their Royal Guards besides. Not a hunting party, this time. Life Enhanced soldiers were precious, and this wouldn't be nearly as difficult as killing that Calamity. Probably as impactful, though.
Still, that was a good hunt.
But rescue missions were important, she was forced to admit. A pair of Legions had gotten themselves trapped relatively close to the Eastfort, retreating to avoid a passing Calamity, and a messenger from the Empress had tasked them with ensuring their safety.
A little under their pay grade, if she was being honest, but fine. Whatever. Marcus insisted the Empress could still technically give them orders, even if she was getting closer to ensuring Mirranian military independence by the day.
The Dungeon break was a great excuse to impose new military qualifications on the nobles, adding Royal Funding to cover the cost. And if she sent a few hundred of her own people to help train them, well. That was just being a good Queen.
And if that meant she could liberally seed them with her own supporters, all the better.
Marcus knew, of course. Not everything, because he'd kind of gone glass eyed when she went into too much detail, but enough to know what she was up to. And while he wasn't quite as enthusiastic, he possessed a cold efficiency that murmured in approval.
Damn that man for having attractive qualities. It made her act all stupid.
She wasn't stupid now, though. He wasn't staring straight into her soul, for one, and for another she was in war mode. In 'slaughter and butcher' mode, not 'teenage drama' mode.
At least teenagers got laid.
War mode, dammit. War mode.
Forty soldiers, roughly the upper limit of what Marcus could comfortably take alongside him for longer journeys, and split into three. Mundane Royal Guards—though she would admit they had excellent training—, mages and Life Enhanced soldiers. Half of those were Royal Guards themselves, but specifying that just made things confusing.
Twenty one Royal Guards, nine mages and seven Life Enhanced soldiers. There. Add herself, Marcus and Vess, and that made forty. Hah. And Marcus had dared to mock her mathematical prowess.
Another teleport, another breathtaking vista. Or it would have been, had the river streaming its way towards the Dungeon not been the only living thing there. Trees, plants, even grass had all been long stripped by the Hounds.
Speaking of Hounds, their numbers were growing. It had been almost suspiciously calm for hours now, and her growing understanding of the enemy had made that decidedly not good. Without something to distract them Hounds just kind of floated apart, drifting aimlessly while searching for food.
A lack of such disorganization meant they had something to hunt, and knowing her luck it would be the Legions they were supposed to rescue.
At least Marcus had brought his two apprentices. Their combat potential wasn't tested yet, but even if they could only weave spatial arcs, they would be deadly. Very deadly.
For all that that spell hadn't done much against the Calamity, she remembered them slicing through whole companies of Imperials during the invasion.
Nothing to be done about that now, though. Because for now it was just travel, the occasional rest, and shooting Marcus a grin whenever the pair of illusion mages veiled their temporary camps.
She wasn't going to mention how two were needed and that Marcus had done it as a side project, but still. It was funny to see him not be the best at magic.
They were getting closer now. Closer and closer until one moment there was nothing but Hounds, and the next they were looking out over a vast plain. A vast plain filled with tens of thousands of writhing, snapping monsters, all rushing away from them.
Away from them and towards an encampment, rough earthen walls raised on all sides. Wooden palisades had been staked on the northern and western front, a hastily assembled camp behind them, and the eastern-south side had been blocked with a living wall of vines.
Two Imperial Legions, eight thousand strong at its height, hunkered down and weathering the storm. And they were weathering it; A second, more gruesome wall of Hounds piled high beyond their own.
Tens of thousands of creatures already dead, tens of thousands more flooding in to take their place. A constant trickle of the things were rushing from all directions, wave after wave after wave crashing against the comparatively small bastion.
Elly averted her enhanced gaze when a flare of light detonated along the northern front, an explosion of fire and heat so hot her finer senses picked up on it even miles away, and she reassessed her opinion on the Imperial Legions.
She'd already know those that had invaded Mirrania had been freshly raised. Well trained but lacking experience, needing their Archmage to become a true danger. This hammered that point home rather thoroughly.
They'd been here for days, if not longer, and even now they were fighting. Even now a whole section of dead Hounds rose as mindless undead, relieving pressure to the south, and a flock of summons a thousand strong picked off any Hounds unlucky enough to be separated from the pack.
Is that a runic bomb?
Her question was answered a moment later, the thing sailing over their own lines to land inside a cluster of Champions. Said Champions had a moment to panic before they ceased to exist, the explosion almost as big as the one from before.
A catapult stone inscribed with runes and thrown at the enemy. Elly suppressed a shudder, what little pride she still had concerning the invasion melting like snow bathed in sunlight.
It was never nice to realize how much the enemy had held back, how much they'd kept in reserve, and that you'd lost anyway.
Marcus stepped up next to her, squinting into the distance a moment before giving up. "I'm assuming you're staring for a reason?"
"I am," she replied, clearing her throat. "They're doing well."
He hummed. "They must be performing actual miracles if you're willing to admit that. How do you want to play this?"
"Shock and awe," Elly said after a moment, pointing. "Wipe out that cluster of Champions, carve our way toward their lines, then see why they're stuck. Burn power but keep enough in reserve in case they don't let us inside."
Marcus rolled the shoulder on his freshly regrown arm. Now that had been an experience to watch. "Can do. Me, Barcus and Donna will wipe out the rabble, you take care of any persistent threats, everyone else keeps us safe."
"Exactly." She smiled at him, pleased. "Oh, and once we get inside, how mad do you think the Empress would be if I killed their generals? You could probably use your Archmage status to bully the other officers into compliance afterwards."
He let out a long, tired sigh. "Please don't aggravate an already sensitive situation."
"No promises," she promised, grinning. Not that she actually would kill anyone, of course. She knew her dislike of the Empire was partly irrational, that they couldn't have conceivably helped her homeland when the Plague of Vidmon had spread like a wildfire, and even if she hadn't been self aware enough for that, it would be bad politics. "Let's get this party started."
That didn't mean she liked the Empire, though. Who knew what a few Legions could have done? Who knew how many they could have saved if the Empire had actually tried? Who knew what Imperial soldiers, soldiers used to and trained to fight against a horde-like enemy, could have accomplished?
But they hadn't even tried, and now she was helping them with their problems. That gave her enough of an excuse to be catty, in her opinion. Or like a total bitch with violent tendencies, if one wanted to be unkind.
Marcus was nice, though, so he just sighed. And stepped in when her dislike got the better of her, which she didn't despise nearly as much as when literally anyone else did it. She had always liked the strong types.
Stupid brain. Focus.
Marcus' demon horse abomination stepped out of a portal and Elly turned back to the battle, seeing the knot of enemies only thicken. The Empire clearly noticed the same, but no rock followed. Good. It would be embarrassing to die to weapons belonging to those she was trying to help.
No other mounts were summoned, but that was fine. Xathar was there to keep Marcus safe as he focused on the slaughter, which was going to happen any moment now.
The illusion mages dropped their veil, Hounds turned towards them almost the moment it did, and Elly led the party onward one step at the time.
If all they'd wanted was to get to the Legions this would be done already, but Elly was fine exactly where she was. The Royal Guards tightened their formation around their King, boxing him and the mages up, while Elly's own Life Enhanced soldiers grouped up around her. Vess, as usual, preferred to be close to Marcus. To be the last line of defense.
If I didn't know better I'd feel threatened.
Ten seconds of calm followed, and then a small group of Hounds had closed the distance. Dog-like things with massive maws and no ears, hollow-chested centaurs charging with rabid snarls, not-cows as thin as beggars. A whole party over fifty strong, something that would take her a good minute to kill.
A spatial arc materialized just ahead of her, five feet all that separated her and something sharper than any sword, and sliced forward. Half the Hounds died, and a second blade finished them off.
She smelled the power. The composition and weave. And that didn't smell like Marcus at all, which would explain their relative lack of cutting-edge. His spatial arcs would have scythed clean through, which meant this was the work of his apprentices.
Elly wouldn't complain. No matter how talented the pupil, how thorough the instructor, real experience couldn't be manufactured in a spar. Couldn't be aped in a classroom.
Four more times those arcs cut smaller parties to ribbons, their slow but steady crawl towards the Legions requiring them to step over a great many corpses. The fifth wave was bigger, well over a hundred strong, and even brought a trio of champions with them.
Those avoided the spatial arc by dropping to the floor, their slower than usual speed allowing for it, Elly drawing her bow with only mildly exaggerated calm. Her quiver shifted on her back, fingers grasping an arrow, and she felt another push closer to the top as she withdrew it.
Ah, the wonders of enchanting. Marcus had made this one for her; A spatially enlarged quiver able to hold nearly two hundred arrows. It even pushed those at the bottom up, because otherwise it would just be a large bag she wouldn't be able to reach the bottom of.
Her first arrow took the largest of the Champions through the neck, the Orc creature dropping like a stone a moment after having risen. Her second and third found their targets less dramatically, but death was death.
She still didn't quite get how the Champions possessed human-like intelligence yet found no issue with sacrificing themselves for little to no gain, but it wasn't important. Let the mages and scholars debate on the why.
She was here to make sure the when didn't become the now.
…that one didn't really work. Shame. Elly hummed lightly as she took aim at another wave, killing yet another Champion moments before the spatial arc killed eight-tens of their numbers. This was light work, for now, but soon enough it would ramp up.
It never really did. Maybe she'd expected too much, expected another battle like against the Calamity, but no. Marcus cut apart swaths of beasts with insulting ease, anything smart enough to survive got shot, and the Legions themselves drew plenty of attention.
Even the fireball one of Marcus' apprentice launched, one that the Empress' messenger had said the Legions would recognize as the signal for their rescue, didn't earn much of a response. Just more frothing Hounds which looked terrifying but weren't really.
Then they wiped out the cluster of massing Champions, Champions that didn't have a good enough answer to spatial arcs, and the red-and-white wearing legionaries greeted them from on top of their palisade.
They looked exhausted, frankly. Tired to all the Hells and wounded more often than not. But they opened the gate—which was more pile than door—all the same.
Elly stepped inside a Legions' camp for the second time in her life, wary faces greeting her. It was like they expected her to hunt their mages for sport, or something. Which she wasn't here for. This time.
Those wary faces grew distinctly blank once Marcus rode inside, two apprentices behind him and flanked by Royal Guards, and Elly rolled her eyes as spines straightened. She was supposed to be the military one, dammit. Marcus already had his mages to fawn over him.
Not that he seemed to be enjoying the attention. His face was almost as blank as those of the Imperial soldiers, which certainly wasn't making anyone more comfortable, and with how tense the Royal Guards were this whole thing could be mistaken for an attack.
Right then, time to impose some clarifications.
"You are being rescued," she intoned, augmenting her voice just enough so that it held some weight. "And the Archmage would like to speak to your generals. Fetch them."
Elly would admit to enjoying the awkward silence that followed. Few people could summon generals, let alone in their own warcamp, but then Marcus was an Archmage. An Archmage doing a favor for the Empress, no less.
No one really knew what the protocol was, clearly, and what few sergeants she could see promptly decided this was way above their station. A runner was sent, the four dozen legionaries returning to their duties, and Marcus slowly nudged Xathar to join her.
He dismounted, voice perfectly calm as the demon vanished. Artificially so. "Did you skip all the lessons pertaining to diplomacy as a child, or just most?"
"I didn't skip, thank you very much," she replied lightly, glancing around. An in-depth look at the Legions couldn't hurt, and she wasn't going to waste the opportunity. "But I always did prefer hanging out with soldiers. And soldiers, dear husband, are trained to follow orders."
"Even if they're not our soldiers?"
Elly snorted. "You'd be surprised at how little that matters. Ah, a welcome party. They must have had one on standby."
He turned, spotting what she'd already seen. Seven people, one a commander and flanked by two captains. Clean, well-rested and hurrying without looking like it, which meant they were probably their most skilled diplomats.
That usually didn't mean much among soldiers, but they looked the part. Even the three attendants with them were clean, which meant that their whole job for at least the last few days was to prepare for this exact situation.
The welcome party slowed once they came closer, their not-run turning into a proper walk, and Marcus turned to them. Vess smiled so pleasantly it wrapped all the way back around to a snarled declaration of war, and at this point Elly's job was done.
Let literally anyone else deal with veiled insults, verbal traps and truth-lying.
Silent Gods, look at that face. His nose doesn't even look broken. What soldier hadn't broken their nose at least once?
The commander stopped and saluted sharply, the entire party focused on Marcus. Then they turned to her and did the same, which meant they'd done their homework. She had kind of been hoping they'd confuse Vess as his wife, which would have been hilarious.
Alas, commander Pretty Boy didn't, and spoke up a moment later after turning back to Marcus. "It is an honor to host you, Archmage. Generals Helma and Reginald request that they attend to you in the strategy room."
That seemed… reasonable. Not like she'd expected the two highest ranked officers of the entire combined Legions to actually come to the front lines. Vess echoed that sentiment a moment later, some platitudes going back and forth about accommodations and refreshments, but fortunately everyone seemed to realize time wasn't on their side.
So before long they were off, traversing through the chaotic camp. Marcus was speaking with Pretty Boy about something or other—apparently the man was a scholar of some skill—but she was far more interested in looking at the legionaries.
Only half seemed to actually be manning the perimeters. The rest was sleeping, entire sections of the camp locked down and faintly smelling of auditory illusions, eating or otherwise relaxing, though everyone looked tense.
Not nearly as many wounded as she was expecting. The only time she really saw any was when they walked past the medical tents, three dozen tired-looking healers moving along two hundred cots. It reminded her of ants, and for all the pained moans of their patients, they seemed perfectly in control of the situation.
Then they were past, and Elly saw hundreds of souls erecting a second layer of fortifications. More earthen walls, more wooden palisades that were literally being fused into the ground by druids. A fallback point should the outer wall fall. Smart.
And well guarded, too. Everyone's identity was checked before they were allowed entry, even Marcus himself being tested with silver and some kind of powder, and only then did they actually get to see the generals.
Elly cracked one of her knuckles when the strategy tent—Pretty Boy could call it a room all he liked, this was a tent—came into view, and Marcus gave her an amused look when the flaps were pushed aside.
Let's get this done fast, she replied with a look of her own, I want to get back to the Eastfort.
Marcus tilted his head, his assent clear, and Elly exhaled quietly. She had a bad feeling about her own people, something she couldn't pinpoint but undeniably there, and it had only grown as they got further away.
The Empress had requested of them to rescue her Legions, so that is what they would do. But she wasn't going to be gentle about it, and she sure as shit wasn't going to be taking her time.
Let's get this shit over with.